10 Reasons I Love Being Jewish
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I never thought being an openly Jewish Coloradan would make me feel unsafe. After Melat Kiros victory in the primaries, I'm no longer so sure.
I am a Coloradan. Before that though, I am a Jew. An unapologetic, visible Jew. Today those two identities seem to be in conflict.
Yesterday, Melat Kiros, the young democratic socialist who called the slaughter of 1,200 of my brothers and sisters on October 7 "inevitable," is now the Democratic nominee for Colorado's 1st Congressional District. In a district that leans as heavily blue as the Israeli flag (the irony is not lost on me), she will almost certainly be the next person to represent me in the United States Congress.
That is scary for me and my community.
Every day, when I walk out the door, there is nothing ambiguous about who I am or what I believe. With my yarmulka on my head it is clear that I am Jewish. Today that feels a little more frightening.
The starkest difference between her and Diana DeGette was Israel. Support for Israel defined this campaign.
With my yarmulka on my head it is clear that I am Jewish. Today that feels a little more frightening.
I obviously disagree with Melat Kiros. I don’t think she is evil. My tradition teaches us to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I do think that she is misguided. From her statements it seems clear that she has never been to Israel and has very little if any first-hand knowledge of a topic that won her this election. Like many young people in our nation, she has absorbed a framework so distorted by a biased narrative that she cannot see the simple truth.
What I cannot stop thinking about is the people who voted for her. The neighbors, the people standing next to me waiting to check out at the grocery store, my doctor, the person in the car next to me at the light. These are the people who looked at everything she said and decided that it was acceptable, or worse, that it was right.
They heard her claim that the rape, kidnapping, and butchering of my brothers and sisters on October 7 was "inevitable," just a form of resistance. They know that she was fired from a law firm for antisemitic views. They watched as she responded to the murder of an 82-year-old Jewish woman, Karen Diamond, and injury of over a dozen people at the Boulder firebombing refusing to call it an act of antisemitism. They still chose her to represent them.
I assume that if I were to have a conversation with Kiros, she would defend herself by saying, "I am not antisemitic. I am anti-Israel." But this language has life and death consequences for real people. The data shows that anti-Israel sentiment leads directly to acts of violence against Jewish people thousands of miles away from Israel.
According to the ADL's 2025 audit, anti-Israel protests were the site of 856 antisemitic incidents in a single year. Protesters openly displayed support for violence against the Jewish community, glorified Hamas and Hezbollah, and celebrated the October 7 attack.
Kiros says Israel is an apartheid state, and that October 7 was the inevitable result of that apartheid. Her supporters repeat that term without looking at what it actually claims.
Arab citizens of Israel, roughly one fifth of the country's population, vote in Israeli elections, run for the Knesset, and currently sit in it. They serve on the Israeli Supreme Court. Arab citizens practice law, medicine, and every profession you would expect and hold the same civil rights as Jewish citizens, and are protected by the same courts. Apartheid was a legal system built specifically to deny citizenship, the vote, and basic civil rights to a racial group on the basis of race, by law. That is not what exists for Arab citizens of Israel.
What Kiros and people like her are actually pointing to is the West Bank and Gaza, where Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens do not have Israeli civil rights. That is true, but neither do I as a Jewish American citizen. This is not evidence of apartheid any more than the fact that Canadian citizens do not vote in American elections or serve on the U.S. Supreme Court is evidence that America practices apartheid against Canada. Citizenship confers rights. You can believe Israel's policies in the West Bank are wrong, unjust, or counterproductive. Plenty of Israelis believe that. But collapsing that argument into "apartheid," a word with a specific and horrifying legal meaning, is plain wrong.
In her victory speech, Kiros said one of her goals is to “end the genocide in Palestine.” The inaccurate and misleading term "genocide" that she purposely uses is meant specifically to demonize the State of Israel. This leads to hatred of and violence against Jewish People around the world.
As the ADL writes, “Regardless of how the term is applied, the accusation is aimed at convincing the general-public that Israel is guilty of committing the most awful of human atrocities. Once levied, these charges tend to affect perception and confuse lay individuals, regardless of their falsity.”
Anti-Israel movements do not stay contained to the political argument. They have a way of fueling physical threats and attacks.
And that is my point. The lay individuals, the supporters at the rallies aren’t looking into the truth of these claims. They are absorbing it like a sponge in the name of liberalism and standing up for the oppressed. And data shows that this leads to attacks of my community.
Anti-Israel movements do not stay contained to the political argument. They have a way of fueling physical threats and attacks.
That’s what I am thinking about this morning as I drop my kids off at camp. It’s the quiet, unnerving fear that I feel as I pass someone on the sidewalk and wonder what they see when they look at me and my kippah and if they have decided, consciously or not, that my existence as a Jew is unwelcome.
First, stop voting Democrat. Jews are not progressive. Jews have been practicing a religion (almost) the same way for thousands of years. That’s conservative, not progressive. “Get a gun.” Only get a gun if you’re willing to use it and you understand that you are capable of taking a life when you fire it. Get mace. Practice pulling it out and using it. Nothing in G-d’s word says that we must be victims. We have the right to life and the right to live. The lies will always prove themselves to be lies. Folks need to recognize that socialism won’t affect just the Jews. It will affect every person in United States.
It is the liberal yahoos that have turned on the Jews, I had a feeling that would happen some day and now it has. Your liberal socialist friends have betrayed you because stirring up the liberal crowd with anti semitism gets them votes. On the other hand I live were there is mostly a Catholic population and they tend to be on the conservative side yet they are strong supporters of Israel and religious rights for everyone including Jews. Many are of Spanish, Mexican and South American ancestry, including my own son in law. The liberal wakos have abandoned you and before you stuck up your noises at these relatively conservative people who have NOT abandoned you, and now the tables are turned and you are whining about it. You should pick your friends carefully in the first place.
Come armed. Case Clsed
Hello Rabbi, I am not Jewish myself, but I stand with the Jewish people. Everything I believe is built on the foundation Hashem laid in the Torah, the prophets and the writings. I share that because as a non-Jewish person I do not know the fear that Jewish people experience as you are describing, but I want to encourage you. Your purpose as a Jewish person is huge. I am inspired by the resilience of the Jewish people. In the darkest of times, Hashem's glory is revealed in miraculous ways. "Be still and know that I am G-d," as it says in Psalms 46. Read the whole Psalms 46 again and remember who Hashem is in light of everything around you. I am praying for you and the Jewish people. We need you! We need who you and who the Jewish people are as Hashem created you to be, a light.
My mom grew up in Colorado , and I lived there as a child. It was great, then the earthquake refugees from California moved in and the place completely changed. The "Anti-Israel" not Anti-Jew crowd chant the same mantra. I heard the same in Iran which is where I lived with my Iranian dad after the revolution. The mantra changes. Jew hate becomes anti-semitism, then Anti-Zionism, then Anti-Israel. Recently, I heard someone say, they didn't hate Jews, just the "corrupt Israeli government." You can say it 40 different ways, but like multiplying by zero, the result is always the same.
When you import the 3rd world, that is what you get. When you import radical Islamists, that is what you get.
I have no misgivings in calling her evil. Supporting genocidal Jew hatred, regardless of your information, is evil. Support of genocidal ANYONE hatred is evil. She is evil. Her fellow Nazis elected in New York are evil. Evil is triumphing everywhere, and I too am afraid.
Fear Not. That instruction appears more often than Love in my concordance. Fear is a crack in your spiritual armor, evidence that the faith you profess is superficial. Consider it cause for introspection. Also, as an American, you have rights to defend yourself and your home. Learn your rights. Resolve to use them. Like faith, rights are worthless with resolve yo use it.
Autocorrect edits: Learn your rights. Resolve to use them. Like Faith, Rights are meaningless without resolve.
Yesterday I was talking w/ my spouse about the Democratic Socialists like this particular politician. He sighed and said: "not all of them are anti Semitic." Rather than arguing with him, I told myself to let him do his own research and we can reopen the topic in our household at a later date. I am staying anonymous because I do not want to commit lashan hara.
The Democratic Socialists are using hate against Jews similar to like the Nazis did. They need an enemy and Jews make good fall guys for these purposes. Jews are often used as fall guys to get people so upset so that they will join your cause to stop the Jewish problem. This has happened before and it will happen again.
The first step in teshuvah is acknowledging that we sinned. The first step in eliminating evil is to recognize evil. Ms. Kiros is evil. Those who voted for her are either ignorant, evil or both. The silver lining is that less than 25% of all registed voters in the 1st district voted in the Democratic primary and slightly less than half voted for this evil person, Melat Kiros.
For years the Jews supported so called liberal Democrats and voted for them and caused them to be elected. I have Jewish ancestors and I never bought what these hypocrits were selling. I am not surprised at all at their decision to throw Jews under the Rug to support certain Islamic and White Supremisits agendas. You are probably wondering are not Islamic and White Supremisits opposed to each other???? In the past they have been however as we all know that it Stalin who said "THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY IS MY FRIEND". THESE two what at first would seem opposites have secretly joined together with respect to take care of the "JEWISH PROBLEM". They may not agree on certain other things, but they agree on the Jewish question.
WE HAVE - LOTS OF HEROIC STORIES OF JEWS WHO HAVE RISEN TO THE OCCASION TO FIGHT THE ENEMY - especially here on "AISH". WHY - can't we also - RISE TO THE OCCASION - & DEFEAT the ENEMY WITHIN US - whose trying to DESTROY - OUR RELATIONSHIP - with G-D?
Yet another warning from Hashem.
How many more do you need?
Make your plans for aliyah now!
Get a license to carry a concealed handgun. Obtain a handtgun which fits your hand and feels natural, then practice, practice, practice until using it becomes a conditioned response. Then, always be aware of your surroundings and if there is no other way to avoid harm to you or your family, shoot your attacker.
Thank you for this article! I do agree with you and I live in Denver.
To Rabbi Lerhfield, I am also from Colorado and my heart breaks for the antisemitism that is here. I want to know how to help, how to encourage. Your story and your fear is real, we should all pay closer attention to what is really going on. We need to remember. Remember our history, Remember October 7th, Remember that we are without the temple, these 3 weeks cause us to remember, to mourn what we have lost and remind us to pray to the One and only God who hears: Help us to prepare a place for HaShem to dwell.
Do not shrink away in fear. Learn self defense and use it if necessary. We must not left these thugs think we are cowards. Get tough and they will leave you alone👊
Well you have to get tough regardless. But they will not leave you alone.
I am not understanding why the author has chosen to give this evil person the benefit of the doubt. Has he not learned the lesson from Tzom Gedalia? The politician has ample opportunity and access to the truth and yet she spreads dangerous lies that can and has killed... And will be in a position to inflict more damage once voted in. Why is that not evil?
And yet perplexingly he does seemingly hold her voters to a higher standard of accountability...
We need to stop trying to ‘justify/explain’ the lies said about Israel. Enough. This is exactly what our enemies salivate over—in the Middle Ages, they forced Rabbis to engage in ‘disputations’ to ‘prove’ the ‘rightness’ of their religion over Judaism.
I am not suggesting we no longer provide articles, etc, that lay out the truth; but I will NEVER AGAIN countenance the statement, Israel has a right to exist. Nor be ‘drawn’ into a discussion.
Israel exists! Like all the 193 countries (I believe this is the number) exists! Those who say differently are JEW HATERS. They DO NOT CARE about truth! Pharoah, Haman, Hitler—to name a few—DID NOT CARE about truth.
That is what I will say if/when someone tries to engage me in this insane rhetoric.
History shows that our sojourn in any country is only temporary and that in the final analysis - we are on our own. So the future of Colorado for Jews in the long run will be no different than it has been in other diasporic countries. The contribution made by our people, will count for nothing and be swept under the carpet and the only asset we will (in the main) take with us is when we move on will be our intelligence and learning.
1. Let go of the victim mentality; understand that suffering is a lesson designed to align one with their spiritual mission, rather than a source of vengeful hatred. For the Jewish people, their long history as an exiled and reviled group has served as a soul-level lesson in forgiveness, the release of resentment, steadfast adherence to inner convictions, and the refusal to let external hatred harden into entrenched hostility. Hatred only perpetuates the cycle of karma, whereas forgiveness is the key to breaking that cycle. Accepting that others' ignorance stems from fear and spiritual unenlightenment—while holding fast to the understanding that all souls are equal—is a spiritual strategy for self-protection.
2. Return to the original intention of witnessing the truth within oneself
interesting perspective
Remind me of that when they applaud the murder of my people.
Eva, preach this to antisemites of the world. It appears you’re claiming that 2k plus years of Jewish prosecution has led to resentment. If you were correct, every Jew would be living in Israel. Spirituality plays a part in life but you need to keep both feet on the ground because spiritually will not save you from the violence caused by hate. Just ask the 1,200 spirits who lost on 7 October.